Welcome to the continuing education for mental health professionals podcast. Today, we are hosting another CEU provider spotlight conversation. This is where we learn more about CEU providers in our community and their journeys. My name is Natasha Moharter and I'm a licensed counselor and OCD specialist. I run the Facebook group CE for mental health professionals. And if you're a mental health professional, we'd love to have you join us in that space. I am so excited because we are joined today by our very special guest, Dr. Amy Marschall. Amy earned her doctoral degree in clinical psychology from the University of Hartford in West Hartford, Connecticut in 2015. She has been a licensed psychologist since 2016 and currently owns a private practice, Resiliency Mental Health (RMH Therapy), where she provides therapy primarily to children and adolescents as well as psychological evaluations and ADHD assessments. Her clinical specializations include trauma informed care, neurodiversity affirming care, rural mental health and telemental health. In addition to her practice in the United States, Dr. Marschall is a registered psychologist in New Zealand. Amy also provides continuing education through PESI and the Telehealth Certification Institute. And she creates continuing education courses through Resiliency Mental Health's APA sponsorship. Additionally, she writes educational mental health materials for Dot Dash Meredith and Spring Health, and she is the resident neurodiversity expert with Grayce. Dr. Marschall is the author of several books, including clinical texts, children's books, and a guided journal. In her spare time, Amy enjoys reading, making jewelry, and spending time with her cats. She is licensed to practice psychology in Florida, Montana, New York, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. She is also a PSYPACT provider. Welcome, Dr. Marschall. It is such a pleasure to have you here today.

Glad to be here.

Can you share a little bit about your background and what got you interested in becoming a creator and CEU provider?

Yeah. So, basically my experience providing continuing education started with PESI, in 2020 when lockdowns and everything happened. I'm in a number of Facebook groups for providers who work with children. I found with the transition to online because of COVID and everything. I was pretty quickly building a new toolbox for myself of here's all the things that I can do in my sessions with these kids. I found that everybody in these Facebook groups was like freaking out because they're saying, how do I do play therapy? How do I do a play based intervention? How do I do a game online? What do I do for all of this? I've been in South Dakota since 2016 and South Dakota is very rural. So I had been doing a little bit of telehealth with children. Just because, you know, there are parts of my state where it's a three hour drive each way to the closest therapist. So I was working to develop kid friendly telehealth options at that time because, these kids and their families just don't have the resources to be driving six hours, once a week for therapy. So when we went online, I already had a few things that I was doing pretty regularly. And I was finding that developing more things was coming pretty easily and everybody else was kind of panicking. So that's when I started my blog, which was initially just a list of stuff that I was doing with kids over telehealth. And then I thought, well, you know, it'd be good to get continuing education in this. And so I reached out to PESI and I said, you all don't seem to have anything for telehealth with kids. You know, maybe you should, and I guess no one else had pitched that to them because they gave me the, they were like, yes, we'll have you, we'll have you develop this. So I've worked with them on a few different continuing ed projects. I've got another on autistic burnout in December. And, basically, I found that, you know, I can make a lot of great content with them, but it is very, drawn out. So the process, you know, you pitch your course, they assess it, they determine like they do their market research and all of that. And it takes a very long time for them to say, okay, yes, this is something that we're going to produce. And I am not a patient person. So I just, looked up, how do I just make CEs just like by myself? And I found out that APA will let any organization apply. They don't approve every applicant, but anybody can apply and say, I would like to provide CEs. As a sponsor for the American Psychological Association. I just applied for my own sponsorship so that I could make my own stuff and not have to wait on anybody, basically.

And so with the APA sponsorship, is it for psychologists only?

So, APA requires that any continuing education that's APA sponsored has to have psychologists involved in the creation. So you would need a psychologist kind of somewhere on your team. But, you know, it's not, you have to be a psychologist to provide APA CEs. I contract with a few people, a counselor, one social worker, I think, who essentially, they have the expertise in the things that they want to present on, they just don't have the Doc.

That is so helpful. And so you do provide co-sponsorship.

Yeah, so basically if someone has a course that's appropriate for psychologists, I can provide a review of their course, and essentially kind of go through all their training material, and determine if it's appropriate for psychologists. And then APA is very particular and has some very specific boxes that they need checked. So I go through and I make sure you're checking all those boxes. And if yes, then I can say, your course is approved for APA continuing education, because I'm approved to approve you.

And what a great opportunity, especially like you said, because APA has a lot of hoops that you have to jump through and you being a psychologist you've gone through the process, you know, the requirements, you know what they're asking.

Yeah, and it's very, their process is also very expensive. What I found as well is that they don't have prices listed on the site, but they'll say like, this is how much it costs to apply, but they don't tell you that that's not the only cost. So I applied and I paid to apply. I also, hired someone who has done the application before to review all of my materials. I compensated her, which I guess is not an essential expense. I could have just submitted it on my own and hoped that they took it, but they typically for, well, they did this to me and I'm told that they kind of do this for everybody. They said, you have some stuff here that looks like it could be okay, but we need more information to make a decision. I received that notification and I had to pay to see their feedback on my application. And then after I fixed the application, I had to pay for the resubmission. And then they did approve me of course, because otherwise we wouldn't be having this conversation. And then I had to pay a fee to activate my approval.

Oh my gosh.

Um, And then they said the approval is good for two years, but at the end of the first year, I had to submit an annual report of what I've been up to. It's not a reapplication. It's kind of just the heads up, but there's also a fee that goes with submitting your annual report. So it's kind of just, it's fees all the way down. I said this on my initial application but one of my intentions with applying is that continuing ed gets so expensive and I would love to have to provide low cost CEs I'd love to have options that are free. And I'm like, okay, but I still have to make up all these fees, not to mention that, you know, I do put money into creating the courses, like primarily the ones I create, I'm the speaker. So I don't necessarily like I get the money when the course sells. I don't have to pay someone a speaker fee. But, I pay a professional human to caption everything so that it's not AI generated and it's more accurate. Zoom has the closed captions, but the auto generated ones are not always the most accurate so I like when I can hire a real person to go back through and get everything right. I am not at a point with my revenue streams to hire a live interpreter, but I can hire someone to take their time afterwards and just get to it when they get to it. And, there's accessibility things that cost money that are important, I think, if you're going to be offering, if you're going to be doing this, you need to be like making it accessible. Accessibility matters, and that's a priority. Honestly, I mean, I want more people to be able to offer CEs. And also my other motivation with the partnerships was, well, if we cut some kind of a deal and that's another revenue stream, then I can make some stuff free because I've made back my fees.

I think you bring up such an important point because when we have resource it funds what we can do, right? Psychologically when people are struggling financially it really zaps your creativity. So why can't we be paid for the work that we do? And creating kind of different additional income streams to be able to do that.

I care about a lot of things. One of the things I care about is living inside, and that costs money.

Go figure! And the lights? You know?

The Wi Fi that we're using to have this conversation, you know, I can call Xcel Energy and be like, do you know how many people I helped last month? And they're going to say, that's nice.

Yeah. Where's our money? So another question, what has been your favorite part of this journey?

I really like that. I'm able to focus on things like topics that are important to me without having to get anybody else's green light on it. One of my areas of expertise is neurodiversity affirming mental health care, which is a newer thing for anybody to be talking about. Basically recognizing that, the traditional medical model, not saying that there's no place for the medical model of things, but this assumption that if you're neurodivergent, then you're a problem that we need to fix. And, you know, you're a burden to the people around you and your brain is inherently bad and wrong, and we need to fix it versus figuring out what your needs are and supporting them. You know, there's emerging research that shows that that does more harm than good, if you can believe it. I've been really wanting to develop more in that space of, because I've noticed that a lot of providers are trying to take this more seriously, which is fantastic, but they don't know where to start. I have, encountered a number of situations where someone's like, yes, we're neurodiversity affirming. And I'll say, well, what do you think that means? And essentially, it boils down to they've heard that certain communities like that term. So they put it on their marketing materials. And I'm like, that's not, you know, you can't just do that. That's like me saying that I'm certified in EMDR when I'm not like, you can't just, you can't just say stuff as a marketing buzzword, you've got to actually be committed to it. So I was like, I'm going to create content that teaches you what this means. How to go about doing it and like truly being committed to it versus just, oh, this is what I'm supposed to be saying is important to me right now.

Right, the buzz, just because it's a buzzword doesn't mean that we need to be plastering it everywhere if we're not actually embracing that, right?

I mean, speaking of being neuro affirming, like, I mean, I'm not saying neuro, you know, I don't fall into that toxic positivity trap of like neurodivergence is secretly a superpower and it's not like that, but you know, I am autistic and ADHD. And part of why I, you know, when you're reading off the stuff I'm doing right now, I'm like, Oh, that's kind of a long list, isn't it? That's why like I've got the hyper focus and there, there are positives to that. And there is a strength based approach to be taken there. And, you know, I'm not, I'm not saying that I'm not disabled. Just yesterday, my husband did the grocery shopping instead of me because I had an overstimulation moment and he was like, what food do we need? And I was like, I can't remember any foods. Like that exists.

So, and you're providing information for therapists to help people like you, right? Yeah. That is so neat. And so it sounds like a lot of it comes from kind of personal experiences and interest as well.

I think there's a lot of, I mean, there's a need in any area to be like, centering the lived experience voices. And I do say in every single one of my presentations and every single one of my publications, I'm like, if you're listening to me to learn about autism from an autistic person, that's awesome. But if I'm the only autistic person you're listening to, then you're not doing it right. Because, you know, I'm a voice, but I'm definitely not the only voice people should be listening to, but also part of why my focus is on that is because I can tell you what it's like to be a business owner with ADHD because I am a business owner with ADHD.

A successful business owner.

Yeah, I'd like to think so. And I mean, part of that is though, because the supports that I need are provided in my personal life. If we meet the needs and we support people and not that you have to be a business owner for your life to have value but if that's a goal you have for yourself. It certainly can be possible when the right support is in place.

So cool and so encouraging. Like you're talking about, there's so many other aspects to this. We don't just have to show up in the therapy realm and be providers. Business owners, we can be therapists and clinicians. And I think the other thing that I, really appreciated from what you just shared was that it's important to listen to other people as well. There's so much room for all of us to be here and to share wisdom and expertise.

There's never going to be one person who's the ultimate voice on everything, and I can have my corner and everybody else can have theirs as well I want to create a program for people who want to be neurodiversity affirming, where you can get a certification if you complete certain education and consultation, checkpoints essentially, show showing that you're truly committed to it and showing that you've truly learned about these concepts. I'm hiring a couple of other autistic speakers to create the content so that it's not just me. I'm giving the option that I'm like, not you have to take these specific courses, but you have to get education on this list of topics, and I've created courses on each of these topics, but if you want to take that course on this topic, as long as it meets the criteria, you don't have to buy any courses from me in order to seek the certification. I am going to have an application fee for the certification itself, just because I've got to go through all the materials, but I'm trying to keep it, you know, as accessible as possible.

You are creating a certification process.

Yeah. Tentatively the name is, Certified Neurodiversity Affirming Mental Health Professional, and then specifically for the autistic community. So, want people to learn about introductory information on what it means to be neurodiversity affirming, what that means, why it matters, information specifically clinical skills from a neurodiversity affirming lens with the autistic community. And that can be, you know, if you do therapy, it can be specific to kids, specific to adults, specific to, diagnostic assessment, kind of whatever your niche is there. Education on the link of autism and trauma because existing in a world that is not designed for you inherently causes some stress. Then, you know, some, education on, autism and gender because it's not a hundred percent, but autistic community is more likely to be trans or non binary, um, as well as continuing education specifically on autistic experiences. Like cultural competence with autistic experiences and racial competence with autistic experiences because a lot of the neurodiversity affirming voices do come from white people. I'm paying someone else to speak to that who is more qualified in that domain than me but I feel like it's, you know, if I'm going to throw out a certification program and ignore that piece, then like, what am I doing? The impact of misdiagnosis and then about um, autistics are at higher risk for suicide. So like that risk assessment piece, there's higher risk for suicide and there's the inherent systemic trauma of involuntary hospitalization. So there's nuance there that needs to be addressed at all angles. So yeah, that's kind of the rundown of topics that'll be covered. And I'm sure I'm not perfect about, I mean, I know I'm not perfect about it, but you can make efforts, you know, there's a difference between trying and not trying, and we can at least make efforts.

So important to remember that we don't have to be perfect.

Yeah. And that's another reason why I'm like, look, if you don't like anything that I have to offer, but you like the idea of this certification, you don't have to take a single course from me or from someone I've paid to make content. You can fully go external. As long as it's truly affirming courses, then fine.

Do you have any tips or advice for somebody kind of exploring their content ideas?

Yeah, I started off creating content because people were saying, where can I learn more about this specific topic? And I was having trouble finding exactly what I was looking for. It's kind of like, with authors, they tell you, write the book that you want to read. I was like, I'm going to create the course that I wanted to take, but couldn't find. Everything from there has been, I want a course on what it means to be neurodiversity affirming. I want a course on autism and trauma. Like I'm just going to create stuff that is what I wish existed. You know, I wish there was a way. For people to get certified and show their true commitment to this approach to treatment versus just being able to slap a word on your marketing material. Technically, you can call anything certification. You can just be like, yes, I'm certified. But you can also say, okay, what makes a good certification? And I also like the outline that I just ran by, that I kind of shared, I did hire a consult again, someone who's developed certification programs in the past. And I was like, here's what I want to do. If I called this a certification, is that legitimate? And if not, what would I need to change about it to be legitimate in calling it a certification to kind of, again, get that external feedback. Okay, like you're not just, you know, cause there are organizations that will just be like, now you're "certified" after like eight hours. And it's like, I mean, technically that word is not regulated and you can say that but like it should be like licensure. You can't just say you're licensed. We should have something similar for certification maybe.

Something else that's standing out to me is that you're talking about not reinventing the wheel, right? You're using your creativity. You're identifying the problems that you want to solve. And you're also saying, okay, now who else is in the community? What are other resources out there that I can utilize so I can keep my momentum going. I'm not reinventing the wheel. That's going to save me a lot of time, right? Time is our most valuable resource.

So like, when we go into practice and they're like, find your niche, find your scope, continuing ed is similar. Like, what do you know about, what are you qualified to tell other people about. Nobody's going to be qualified to speak on absolutely everything. I'll regularly just kind of, Put out a blast and be like, what should I talk about next? And someone will mention something. And I'm like, I'm not even kind of qualified to talk about that, I hope you find what you're looking for. Maybe if you're saying it because you have expertise on it, you can create it.

The other thing that stands out too is that, representation again matters and our voice and the way that we say it might resonate with somebody and might not resonate with somebody else. And I know there are various authors that I read and, somebody else that I've read maybe has said the same exact stuff, but they didn't resonate with me. This person over here did. And so again, getting our voice out there, you don't have to be an expert, right? You can be a contributor, you can get your stuff out there. And you don't have to know everything about everything. And it's okay to say, I'll get back to you and I will do some research.

Yeah, I read somewhere. There's this show to tell the truth where there's three people who are all claiming to be one specific person. You have to guess who's lying. I was reading something that was like, you can always tell who's the real expert because ask them a technical question and the expert at some point will say, I don't know. The liars will make something up to be like, I definitely know everything about this, but the real expert is the one who's willing to be like, actually, that's not something that I have at the top of my brain. I can look it up though. I know where to find it.

So question is there a difference between live and asynchronous training?

So APA has two tracks. There was a discount if you signed up for both. So I just got both. There's live and then there's home studies. As the names suggest, the live courses are done live and the home studies are done at your own pace, your own time. I've primarily done home studies just because I found that it's again for me, I like home studies because I can pause and I can go back and I can break down a one day training into like an hour a day for a week and get through all the content, which is great because we are all incredibly busy. Having ADHD, there are times that I'll listen to something and suddenly be like, Oh, hey, I have been zoning out for the last 15 minutes. And with a home study, I can just hop back 15 minutes on the video and still get that information. I do a lot of videos, but, it doesn't have to just be videos. You can do written modules, you can do other ways of learning. And that's the cool thing about home studies. A live webinar kind of has to be me talking, but a home study can have components and actually like my I mean my home studies all have video because I like to relay information I like to hit record and then just kind of talk for a while. Um, I've called it monetizing my info dumps. But a lot of my home studies have follow up homework assignments. So like, um, like I have a home study on diagnosing autism in adults and it's three CEs, but I believe my lecture is closer to two hours because part of the CE is I provide my template for how I write those reports. And I say now that you've watched the video. Review these templates, spend this amount of time reviewing the templates, and then spend this amount of time creating your own template, and then pull it into your own practice. So, I don't have to talk for three hours to have it be three CEs, but it has to be three hours on the participant's end and then they not only have the knowledge, but they come out of the course with here's how I want my reports to look and I can make my report writing time more efficient because I have made my templates ready to go.

You're giving people the information and then it's like you can literally take this and go implement it.

Which is, by the way, that's one thing that APA really likes. They want you to say what is someone taking this course, what are they going to be able to do the second that certificate is in their hands? What are they going to be able to do because they took the course and sometimes they get I'll be honest, they get particular in ways that are sometimes pedantic. But the, you know, one of the things is like your outcome objective can't be, I'm going to understand this concept. Your objective has to be, what am I going to do with that information? Like, I'm going to be able to take this concept and craft a treatment plan from that lens. I'm going to understand this concept and have five actionable things that I could do in a session because of my understanding of this concept. Cause that's the difference between continuing ed and just kind of learning about a topic because you're interested in it is being able to say like, here's how this information is like informing my career.

Absolutely. I think it's such a helpful framework especially when you're starting to develop the courses. One of my experiences in creating content was I wanted to throw everything in there because I was like, they need to know everything. Am I really doing a good job? I did a training. It was an hour long training on OCD and I threw in so much info. The responses that I got were, this was great. And it was a little bit like drinking from a fire hose. And I think we need more info on this. And I was like, oh, I only needed to bring like two of those concepts.

And another thing too, is that, typically, well, I don't know about NBCC and the other approval processes because I've only done APA, but the standard is everything has to be appropriate for someone who's post licensure. So I can't come in and be like, here's what a therapy session, like it has to be material that's relevant to the people I'm marketing the course for, but there's levels. So you can say this is introductory, intermediate, or advanced. So like I have a course on what it means to be neurodiversity affirming as a mental health professional. And that one is marketed as an introductory level course to this concept. And then I have a course on neurodiversity affirming, autism evaluations. If you don't know what it means to be neurodiversity affirming, you should take this course first, or another course like this first and then come back because I'm not going to sit here and review all of the philosophy behind this because you're here to learn how to take that knowledge and implement it in this setting. If you want me to talk for an hour and you want it to be intro level, then I'll get into here's what the DSM says and here's what that looks like. And here's what a level is and here's how to use that label in a way that's going to be helpful rather than harmful. But if you're like, okay, we'd like these to be people who already understand what this topic is and they want to elevate things that they're already doing, then I'm like, all right, I'll start up here.

You don't have to throw in all the information, you can really conceptualize, okay, this is for intro, this is for moderately advanced, and then we have advanced.

For OCD, if it's an intro and it's like, okay, you're a mental health provider. You obviously know what OCD is, but you maybe don't have any experience treating it versus this is for people who specialize in OCD, who want to get more advanced concepts. The amount that you explain what OCD is and how prevalent it is and how to diagnose it like there's things you can skip over if you're like everybody in this room already specializes in OCD.

Absolutely. So that brings us to marketing and kind of niching down. And I think when we talk about who are we advertising this to? Is it an intro level? Is it more advanced? And we know that all the business gurus say, you have to know your market. You have to know your population. What are their problems that they need solved? And how do you, create that solution and that bridge from where they're at to where they want to be.

So there's kind of, and I think this was me, the way that I was interpreting the information, because they're like, find a problem, and offer a solution and I'm like, Oh, you want me to tell you the problems in the mental health field? All right, I've got a list. But then I started offering solutions to problems that like maybe other people weren't seeing as a priority to solve. I'm like, well, it's, it's a problem that historically the field of psychology has offered treatment options for autism that objectively there's research to show that this treatment increases their risk for PTSD. In what world is it acceptable and ethical for me to recommend that my client do something that is likely to increase the risk that they're going to be traumatized. That's not okay. So I start speaking about that and a lot of people are like No, and it's like, what do you mean no, and so my, the problem is that I try to market to the problems as I see them, and then other people don't agree with me. One of the books I wrote is on ethical and legal clinical documentation with children and adolescents. A few people that I've talked about it with were like, a lot of people just don't bother keeping good records like they don't really care to write good progress notes. It's a problem because we're supposed to write and keep good documentation. But when you're marketing a book of, hey, we're supposed to be doing this do you want to do it better to someone who's like no I'm just not going to bother to do it at all they're still not going to buy your book, they're still not going to attend your course. Finding the problems that other people are also willing to work on, and also like being able to market things in a way where you're explaining to people why this is an issue, even if they maybe didn't recognize it as an issue before you brought it up to them.

Absolutely. And there's so many things that are vying for our attention, right?

Yeah well I think you have to like I do have a feedback form that everyone has the opportunity to fill out. And I have a contact form on my website specifically for people who have taken my courses for questions or comments that they want to send me.

Whenever you're putting stuff out there into the world, people can have opinions, right? They don't, nobody, not everybody is going to agree. I think that it can be vulnerable to put our work out there or to teach something and in some of my eval forms, you know, the majority is good. And then sometimes people just have like, oh, you didn't do this. And you're like, Oh, I didn't know that that was important. Okay. That's, that's good to know. Ouch. A little bit. And okay, moving on.

Some of what I teach is here's an intervention that some of my clients have found helpful and another provider is going to be like, I would never do that in my sessions. That's fine. Clients who take to their style better than mine still need providers to go to. I don't have time to see everybody and I'm not the right fit for all the clients. I've gotten feedback that my courses speak on social justice too much, but I'm like, diagnosis is political, psychology is political. If you don't want to hear it in your CEs, then go to another provider.

There you go.

Well, now I'm going to talk about social justice even harder. Like, what does this have to do with diagnosing ADHD? And I'm like, well, the disparities in access to an accurate diagnosis, first of all. Ableism, discrimination, stigma, second of all, like, where would you like me to begin? Neurodivergent people have higher rates of poverty and there's a genetic link in most neurodivergences. So you've got kids who are more likely to have this diagnosis because of systemic oppression that their parents have grown up with. And then you've got the additional barriers to them getting the support that they need. And it perpetuates this cycle. I'm sorry, you don't see the connection, but you know, maybe if this isn't important to you, you shouldn't be working with a marginalized population.

And you're bringing that in your content, you're sharing that knowledge. I also really appreciate your honesty with that marketing is kind of a challenge. I didn't take any marketing or business courses in my graduate career.

And if anything, they kind of teach us that marketing's icky, like, oh, you're a mental health professional you're here to help people you're not here to like sell something and I'm like, well, you know, we didn't invent capitalism we just live here, and we have to, first of all, we can't help anybody if they don't know that we exist. I have my book coming out next April, The Neurodiversity Affirming Mental Health Care What Every Therapist Needs to Know. And my editor was like, what if instead of marketing, we called it visibility. And I was like, I love that, because

That is amazing!

It's not that I'm some like, sleazy stereotype of the used car salesman, who's like trying to trick you. I'm trying to let you know that I have something that could help you. But that makes the marketing difficult because I don't know how to be like flashy. And like, you know, I talked with the marketing department at PESI because they're like we're putting together the materials so that people know your course exists so they can take it, and they're like how do we make it flashy and I was like, I don't know. Why should people take this course and I'm like, this is, this is good. It's good.

It's important.

Important topic like I don't know and they're like okay but, you know, there are a lot of courses on important topics. We need yours to stand out or no one's going to see it. And I'm like, yeah.

And sometimes when we have topics that aren't so flashy or fun, there's still so much importance to that. There's still a market for that as well.

Trauma informed care, flashy, like, hey, we're going to talk about supporting someone who survived horrific, grotesque abuse, like. See you Friday morning. It's going to be awesome.

Like bring your coffee!

Let's make it fun and lighthearted. Like, you know, it's important. I had my autism and trauma course recently and I was like, we're going to talk about how the mental health system has let this community down and hurt the people that we're supposed to be helping. I don't know how to make that sexy and catchy for a commercial. I don't know what to tell you other than that. It matters. So that's something that's been a work in progress for me. Cause I do have social media presence, but a lot of my following is like, it's awesome that you're making these courses. I'm not a therapist, so I'm not going to take it, but I'm glad you're putting it out. And I'm like, that's great. And I'm glad that the people I'm here to help feel that this content is important for mental health professionals to have. And also like, how do I get it in front of the actual mental health professionals?

Like you said, there's that balance, right, between I don't want to be salesy, but I do want to be visible. I think that's another really neat part of becoming a CEU provider is that you're not just helping the one therapist, right?

There's only so many people you or I could see in a given week doing therapy full time, but if you create a course that a hundred people take, you're now by extension helping every client of those hundred people.

And the other thing with the home study is you don't have to have butt in seat hours. It's like money while you sleep because they are able to take it whenever it is a convenience to them not just Friday mornings at eight or I do mine on Saturday mornings, which is a day that typically people are off.

Like, I'm international, like in New Zealand, it is, it's about 7am on Monday in New Zealand right now.

How interesting!

It's hard. I'm doing some live webinars in New Zealand in the coming months. And the times are so like, we're finding times that, that are my business hours and their business, but the overlap is like a three hour window.

What is it like to be a provider in New Zealand?

Yeah, so that happened because, I got married in 2019 and we had our honeymoon. We went to Wellington and then we took this guided tour of the North Island up to Auckland and then we went to Waiheke Island, which is north of Auckland there are a couple of, vineyards there and we did wine tastings. It was awesome. While I was there, I met a woman who runs a clinic. And so I ended up having an impromptu job interview, like a normal thing to do on your honeymoon. So, I ended up with a job offer in Auckland, that was offered to me, I believe it was the 10th of March, 2020. You're not going to believe what happens next.

A couple days later.

We're figuring stuff out and they're like, you have to go to your doctor and get an immigration physical. That's the first thing you have to do. So they send me the form a week later and I call my doctor and I'm like, Hey, I need an immigration physical. And my doctor said, we just had our first, confirmed community transmission of COVID. We're not doing non essential procedures. Please call us back in two weeks. And so when they said, call us back in two weeks, I spent those two weeks putting together my licensure application and I sent it in and then their licensing board closed and their borders closed for like 18 months. I guess that's a bust. And then all of a sudden, one day I got an email that was like, Hey, you know, we've processed your application. When are you getting here? And I was like, I thought that wasn't an option anymore. So I was initially registered non practicing, but then with telehealth, I've, I activated my license and I've just been working remotely, which is cool. I get to specialize, you know, a lot of ADHD and autistic people have a weird relationship with sleep. So like when I'm scheduling people, I'll get appointment requests and I'll email and I'll be like, Do you realize that you selected an appointment at 3 a.m.? Like, was there an issue with the time conversion? They're like, no, I know that's 3 a. m. I'm going to be up anyway. And I was like, all right. I've got four time zones in the U S plus the New Zealand time zone. I think this is a good thing, but the New Zealand licensing board takes cultural competence very seriously. So they're like, all of your cultural experiences are remote and I'm like, yes. Because I am in South Dakota. And they're like, okay, but you've got to do some in person. So we're trying to figure out when that's going to happen.

Is there anything else from your perspective that would be helpful for a CEU provider that's on this journey that wants to maybe follow in your footsteps?

You don't have to do all the things you can decide what things you really, really want to focus on. And there's just so many different options and routes for your business. You can say, I want to get my own CE sponsorship, or you can say, I want to partner with someone else to sponsor these if you don't want to be doing the marketing side of things at all, you can say, I'm going to apply with this organization and then they're going to do that piece of it. And I can just focus on making content. It's really just kind of what do you want your energy to go into? Cause there's a trade off like with me getting my own sponsorship, it was because I wanted to choose the topics that were important to me. And not have to convince someone else that those topics were important. If I were using someone else's sponsorship, I would need that buy in from them. Say what you will about PESI. They have the biggest mailing list of anybody. And if you do a course with them, people are going to know that it exists, it's going to get in front of people. I've had people I have not spoken to in over a decade emailing me and they were like, this is you. Right. And I'm like, yes.

And it's effective, right? If they have the resource, it's like you said, sometimes that can be the choice that you make as a CEU provider. If you don't want to do all of the things. Before we wrap up, can you share with us a little bit more about the trainings that you have, the certification that's coming up, your book, and any other of your amazing resources that would be helpful for us to know about?

Yeah, sure. So, on my website, there's the blog, and I think I'm up to, like, 530 posts or something like that. And that's all sources that are freely accessible. Some of it is for, the general public. Like I talk about, here's how health insurance works. Here's why your therapist might not want to be in network. Like, here's how you can argue with your insurance company to give you coverage, stuff like that. But then there is a link on the website to my courses that I've done with other organizations. And then there are 13 courses that I've created for CEs that are available, through the website. I've written quite a few books, there's a link on the website that has all of them. But there's, uh, there's a few, you know, telehealth, Neurodiversity Affirming Support for Autistic People, neurodiversity affirming therapy as that umbrella term, Clinical Documentation with Children and Adolescents. I also have three children's books, one co written with each of my cats. Slipper the Penguin, which is about a penguin who thinks she's bad at being a bird because she can't fly like her friends. Then she meets other penguins and learns that she's good at other things. She also has a board game that my illustrator and I just launched it's a cooperative board game where you work together to help Slipper, you know, find her penguin friends. But my cats, one has diabetes. He's 14 years old, Armani. So he has a children's book about how the vet helped him feel better when he got sick. And then Vera, our other cat, was a stray. And she has a trauma response to a number of strange things we think it's connected to the fact that she used to live outside. Her book is about how she gets scared. Even though she's safe now, she still gets scared sometimes because she knows what it's like to not be safe. And how we help her when she's feeling scared, even if it doesn't make sense to us, why something would be scary for her. So, you know, trauma, illness, neurodivergence. It's kind of checking all the boxes.

And what's so cool is just the creativity behind this, and that you don't just have to provide a live webinar right you can find your creative aspects and things that are important to you. My humble biased opinion, our pets can be so, so important and so helpful in this journey.

Yeah. Oh, my first children's book is Armani Doesn't Feel Well, and it's because when he, when he was, well, first of all, in 2020, when school was online and therapy was online, I had a lot of kids who didn't want to come to therapy because I've been in Zoom all day. I don't want to be in Zoom anymore. So I trained him to join Zoom meetings and he would get a treat. So they would come. Vera, I tried to train her to come get treats on Zoom. She had no interest in being on camera. And I said, you know what? Fine. I respect that you're not obligated, but Armani would. And then he was, diagnosed with diabetes and he has to get insulin injections twice a day. So when I work with kids who either have a medical issue or if they're taking medication for their mental health or for ADHD or whatever, Armani is the example of, you know, he doesn't always like it either, but when we go to poke him, he growls, but he holds still and lets it happen. Maybe I'm projecting a sentience onto my cat, but I like to think it's because he knows I don't enjoy this, but after you do it, I feel better. So I would like you to do the thing that makes me feel better basically. And I was like, it could be a children's book.

You really put a lot of effort and work into your books, into your content creation, the trainings, right? Getting your name out there, in terms of sharing the knowledge and the wisdom that you have about topics that are important to you. And my guess is, even when, content creation isn't fun, when we're kind of like, I have to do what, right? This isn't the part that I signed up for. Because it matters to you so much, you can keep going, you can keep pushing.

Yeah.

If people want to find you where would they reach you?

The main way would be my website, resiliencymentalhealth.com. Resiliency with the Y. I've got my blog on there. So there's a whole bunch of resources that are free to access. And there's a contact form for continuing education. Basically, if it's not regarding an existing course, you can just write collaboration under what course it's regarding. If you're like, I want to get my own APA sponsorship, but I want a consult to help with that, I can be that. If you want to collaborate, and I sponsor the course you've already created, RMH education has the courses that I have created and I'm currently co sponsoring. So if you need to check your CE boxes, I have that. The most common question I get following someone taking one of my courses is does such and such licensing board recognize this? You would have to ask them. There are 50 United States, several US territories also have their own licensing boards. And each of those states also has a psychology board, a social work board, a counseling board, a marriage and family therapy board, It is literally hundreds of licensing boards. No, I cannot keep track of each of the requirements. I have a hard enough time keeping track of the CE boxes I have to check for my licenses. So I know people want to know and they want to be sure and I 100 percent respect that, but you gotta ask the board what they'll accept. If they accept APA then they'll accept mine. If you have an ethics requirement, if they accept under APA standards, then mine that say ethics, would be accepted, then it just depends on the board.

Dr. Amy Marschall, again, thank you so much for your time and for your willingness to be here today. It has just been such an honor to have this conversation with you. I know we briefly interacted on the Facebook group, but this was just such an honor to get to meet you today virtually, with the Wi Fi that we pay for.

Yeah, thank you so much. It was great to be here and it's always good to talk about everything that I'm doing.